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Non-EU companies will now find it easier to access the European equity markets following action from the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets

In a move that will give much needed insight into the domestic Chinese legal market, Lovells has launched the Sino-Global Legal Alliance, a non-exclusive partnership between the UK firm and nine leading Chinese firms

In a hasty response to this summer's mortgage fund crisis, the Australian Securities & Investment Commission has released proposals to improve disclosure for retail investors in the unlisted and unrated debenture market

Lovells has hired energy and infrastructure specialist Hermenegildo Altozano to lead its new energy, power, utilities and infrastructure practice in Spain.

Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae will merge from October 1 2007, the two firms announced last week.

Europe James Black joins White & Case Kate Lamburn leaves Ashurst for McDermott Hugh Verrier, also off to W&C Amjad Hussain has joined Eversheds in Qatar Gabor Molnar leaves Paul Weiss White & Case has hired US capital markets partner James Black. Black joins the firm's Frankfurt office from Linklaters where he worked for three years as an associate on both domestic and international equity and debt transactions, as well as mergers and acquisitions, advising both German and international clients. The move is part of White & Case's expansion of its European capital markets practice. So far this year, the firm has seen the addition of partner Lutz Krämer and local partner Benedikt Gillessen in Frankfurt, as well as partners Andrew Caunt, Andrew Croxford and Carter Brod in London.

Regulation 06-02, introduced onSeptember 24 2006, has not changed the procedure for incorporating a bank or financial institution, but does make changes to applying for approval to open a bank or financial institution, and a banking licence.

The debate over debt pushdown mechanisms in secured financing of listed company acquisitions has been going on in Turkey since the late nineties. With increasing investment by foreign private equity funds, the scope of this debate is broader, and covers the use of a target company's assets for securing the financing of an acquisition. The CMB's approach to this structure is controversial. Recently, it had an unpleasant experience when a private equity fund backed out of a deal due to a lack of financing. According to public disclosures made by the target, a fund that had agreed to purchase the company's shares terminated its agreement with the sellers on the ground that it had financing-related problems caused by economic fluctuations. The CMB's position was that such problems would not have occurred had the financing not been secured by the target company's assets. Reportedly, this led to the CMB's position that investors who wish to acquire shares in Turkish companies should secure their own financing instead of relying on the target's assets as collateral. The reasoning is that the use of the assets puts the minority shareholders in a difficult position.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently issued a favourable advice memorandum (the AM) on the treatment of convertible bond call spreads. The AM finds that an issuer can couple a call spread with a convertible bond to create additional original issue discount (OID) deductions, in effect sanctioning such transactions on terms that resemble, to a large degree, offerings seen in the market over the last five years.

Switzerland is about to enact a new Book Entry Securities Act (BESA) and has signed the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights Held with an Intermediary, concluded on July 5 2006 (the Hague Securities Convention).